"The worlds continents are made up of human bodies overlapping and intertwined to represent all the different people around the world. The base is The World Book of Knowledge which represents literacy, knowledge, learning and development. The chains are there to represent how many people around the world are held back or kept away from knowledge. Break the chains and try to help every one in the world to have equal opportunity to education, to try and stop child poverty.
The stone is local, it is a beautiful dark red soapstone with veins of quartz running through it. The finished look is much like granite with heavy grain and changes of color throughout." - Paul E. Shier

In November 2006, Paul entered his sculpture"The Challenge" in The GATES Project art exhibition held in Chicago. "The GATES Project is a national fundraiser based on the concept of turning a challenge into a positive or, in this project, transforming the symbols of challenge into art" as detailed in the website: www.iguglobal.org The pieces are donated to the GATES Project to be auctioned off to assist in reducing worldwide child poverty. Paul's sculpture was selected over hundreds of entries from all over the world. As a result, Paul was invited to Florence, Italy to participate in the Biennale Internazionale Dell' Arte Contemporanea' (International Biennial of Contemporary Art) exhibition and sale in December 2007. By fundraising, Paul met the cost of transportation and accomodations for himself and his sculptures to Italy.

"This sculpture, being donated for our troops in Afghanistan, ties in very strongly with the sculpture "Thundering Silence" I donated to the people of New York City after the tragic criminal acts of 911. It was because of that event our troops are over in a foreign country trying to help other people and trying to help stop the same type of thing happening in our own country.
Many military regiments or squadrons use animals as a mascot and I think the Wolf would be a very good symbol for our Canadian troops. The wolf roams freely all over Canada and is regarded with honour, mystery and can be a fierce adversary. There are quite a few similarities with this majestic animal and soldiers, there is a definite order to rank, they work great in numbers towards a single goal, strong, fierce, silent but very social and caring among their own ranks. The Wolf howling softly portrays a mournful or sorrowful howl as one might expect a wolf to do after loosing a mate or fellow member of his pack. I also think this strong animal would make a great Guardian to stand over time to guard and call out and tell a story of heroes lost but never to be forgotten." - Paul E. Shier